End of the Grape Life

I'm sure you've heard people say at one point in your life, "well if you saw the kitchen of that place you'd probably never eat there again" in reference to your favourite restaurants or even just fast food in general with the idea that we only eat at these places because we don't know what happens to our food before we get it to the table. I thought this may be like grape picking and wine when we began this job--that maybe after seeing the effort that goes into producing a bottle of wine that I would be turned off wine forever. This is definitely not the case, but I do a finer appreciation for the effort involved when picking out wines now; I also tend to think, "wow, this bottle is $5 and they were paying me $19/hour to pick some lousy grapes for it?"

Our grape picking is coming to an end as the season hasn't been that great for the farmers and the work is getting less and less for us as the days go by. The past few days when we were told we would be working "full" days of up to 8 hours we were finished in barely 3 or 4 hours. This was ok with me because grape picking is SO BORING but it would have been nice to be guaranteed some sweet money. Money, that is another thing we have yet to see a lot of coming out of this job. While we were supposed to get paid on friday, our sorry excuse for a boss Camelia said the money didn't clear from the farmers and everyone would have to wait until Monday but she would give us $200 for now. We took our $200, waited out the weekend and with many other backpackers were waiting at the campsite early Monday morning for the rest of our money. Camelia and her boyfriend Yemaz said they were going to get everyone's money and would be back in an hour. We waited around, swam in the caravan park's pool and hung out with friends until we realized there was no way they were coming back that fast like they said. We decided not to ruin our own day and went to a few wineries for some wine tasting to pass the time.

We went to Sobel's, Tempus Two and McGuigan wineries where we tasted various chardonnays, sparkling, shiraz, merlot, pinot gris and many more. We told the wineries that we were the ones picking their grapes so it was neat to see where our hard work was going. Stew and I grabbed some sushi dinner that we had been craving for a long time at the Tempus Two winery and then headed back to the caravan park. Camelia and Yemaz showed up at 5:30pm and screwed around putting up the tarp on their tent while about 20 backpackers started gathering waiting for answers. I gave them 5-10min to avoid us before I walked up and asked them when they were planning on telling us what was going on. I found out that they STILL were not able to pay us because the money hadn't cleared yet and that tomorrow. This was starting to sound like the biggest scam of life. Everyone was pissed and some backpackers have been depending on this money for life to the point they don't have anything, so the camp was buzzing with angry travelers. Many people are planning on leaving because the work is minimal now and questionable if there even IS more work and most people are sick of Camelia's crap.

Stew and I went to talk to Camelia and Yemaz privately as they often give us the real answers that they withhold from the other travelers. We're pretttttty sure it's because we're Canadians, good pickers and masterminds at getting the real answers out of them haha. We told them we were planning on taking off as well and they suggested giving our account numbers so that they could direct deposit the rest of our money on Friday--ya right. I told them I was not comfortable with this as if they screwed up any digits or anything went wrong, I wouldn't get paid and we would be all the way up in Byron with no way of getting our money and only having contact with them through phone which they already ignore. Camelia asked, "what you think we wont pay you?" ummmmm yes, thats pretty much EXACTLY my point. I passive aggressively suggested that no, it's just we want to settle everything before we leave when really I meant 'I want my money, you can't be trusted, we want to get out of here leaving nothing behind and never want to hear from you again.' We were able to talk them into paying us the rest of our money while the rest of the backpackers will have to wait until friday now. Such a crock for most as they admitted there is not going to be much work if any after wednesday and most people have paid to stay until friday for nothing now.

Anyways, our plans are that we are going to call places in Byron and find out who if anyone is hiring and how soon we can get out of here though not before we get every penny we are owed from Camelia and Yemaz. The running joke on the campsite was that if they try to run with everyone's money, the backpackers will use their cars to baracade them in until we get our pay. haha. A funny thought, but it is not being ruled out just yet, these people are unpredictable and never follow their word. As we went around talking to the backpackers and finding out various stories and how people were fighting to get on the lists for work while we just relaxed in the hotel and were automatically on the list and how people have to wait now to get their money and how we managed to work our way to getting ours sooner that we would be really great on survivor--we just know how to get what we want haha.

So, the grape picking experience has been interesting; aside from the money scandals, we've met some really great people from Germany, France, Canada, England and Ireland, some of who we got to surf with in Newcastle on a beach day. I've learned that I hate farmwork and would never survive the 88 days of fruit picking to obtain a second year visa because it is just too damn boring and repetitive--I much prefer customer service jobs where you can interact with people and not have to break your back all day. I'll miss the constant yelling "Bucket!" from everyone--the standard when you have filled yours and need a new one but has become hilarious as the different accents make the "bucket" call sound more like a chicken clucking. Oh, and can't forget the farmers day in and day out telling us how to pick and no rotten and speed up, etc. etc.

We've acquired dirty fingernails, bugbites, scrapes and knicks in our fingers from the vines and cutters, seen some crazy spiders and walked into their webs unintentionally, touched some of the most rotten grapes and trapsed through muddy trenches to pick the perfect grapes. It may sound like a nightmare but we've actually had a pretty good time with the backpackers and definitely will never forget this job. While we were in the McGuigan winery yesterday, Stew pointed out a painting on the wall of the vineyard at sunrise; rows and rows of vines with the mountains in the background and a warm sunrise lighting up the field. Stew asked me what I thought of the painting and I said, "It makes me want to kill myself" and laughed. I think from now on, I'll stick to drinking the wine and never want to be in those vineyards again. Going back to the idea of seeing the kitchen--let's just say, what you don't know can't hurt you...so stay in the restaurant and you'll always enjoy your meal!